Places to feed your inner-zine

I am just writing to let you know about a couple more ways to get your zine heard and your face known in Australia.

The Sticky Institute is your place to start..
jump on their website http://www.stickyinstitute.com/
email them stickyshop@gmail.com
or pop in mon-fri 12-6, sat 12-5
underneath Degraves Subway (Flinders St station, Melbourne)

Look for zine fairs, I am adamant that zine fairs are the community that will welcome you in with cups of tea and vegan cupcakes. There's always one with This is Not Art festival in Newcastle each October long weekend, Verge Festival at Syd Uni... well, actually.. my brain just stopped working and I must get back to work! Can you all help out with your ways of the world?

Oh, and for a last minute grab at the attention - I am a distro that is calling for submissions from anywhere in the world. Zinesters who offer cooking, crafting, cute, funny zines or perzines are welcome to send me their wares for distro-ing. Get in touch and we can negotiate our voyage together. quiet.chirps@gmail.com

Octapod! The Octapod offers Newcastle's largest zine library collection with a plethora of new and old zines (stuff you'll never find anywhere else on just about eeeeeeevery topic imaginable)http://www.octapod.org
or contact Christina on (02) 4927 0470

Replies to This Discussion

We can send you our zines for distribution? Cool :) I'm not sure if the one I have published is suitable, it's a sketchbook more than a zine really, but I'm doing another couple this week to take along to This Is Not Art. Gotta love living in Newcastle ;)

Venture down to Sydney for a few of our zine fairs too... They're very fun and seem to include a huge amount of cupcakes so watch out for your sugar levels. (I'll keep you informed on this Aussie group each time there's a fair coming up here)

Emma Stronach said:

We can send you our zines for distribution? Cool :) I'm not sure if the one I have published is suitable, it's a sketchbook more than a zine really, but I'm doing another couple this week to take along to This Is Not Art. Gotta love living in Newcastle ;)

"THE SOMETIMES LAME & UNFORTUNATE TRADITION OF THE HAWTHORN ZINE FAIR
Sunday 26 October 11am- 4pm
Every year the most excruciatingly-painfully named literary event, 'Yeah
Write!' is held, including a zine fair. Last year was woeful. This year
promises to be better because it will be in conjunction with the Get Into
Art Day(?).
Hawthorn Town Hall,358 Burwood RoadHawthorn Mel. Ref. 45 D10
More info www.townhallgallery.blogspot.com
Email mardi.nowak@boroondara.vic.gov.au for registration forms to get a zine
stall."

Yep, there seem to be a lot of zine fairs these days - can't argue too hard with the Sticky newsletter since I was there last year, but the Hawthorn zine fair (I'm renaming it as 'yeah write' sounds silly and I know it wasn't called that originally) has had some awesome years in the past. A lot more people seem to be coming this year (it was a sad twist of fate that election day landed on it last year). Plus the tables are free.
You'll want to email Mardi at: missmardi@gmail.com or (03) 9728 4775 as that other email appears not to work.

Sticky is also having a zine fair in February in conjunction with International Literary Conspiracy Week. Will keep you all posted about details, but the fair looks to be on Saturday February 14th in the Degraves st subway, somewhere around the same time it was this year.

Are there any current shops in Sydney that take zines? I thought maybe there was one on King st, Newtown. Black Rose Anarchist or something else? (obviously not the defunct Pulp books)

I had no idea about Synaesthesia - will have a look.

Also, there are some other very good ways to get your zines distributed in australia. The unconventional approach, such as leaving them places. In libraries. in record shops, bookshops, cafes or venues, near where people drop fliers or elsewhere on trains. inside books. hanging from trees with a string. I mean, you'd have to be willing to part with them for free. But it makes things so much more interesting.

Candace, places on King Street, Newtown - there's Paint it Black (record store that has an area for zines, but they did consignment when I last put zines there &when I asked for the money next time round they just shoved it at me because they don't have the records) and anarchist bookshop on Parramatta Road, Jura Books who basically stock political, environmental, social issues zines.

Candace said:

Are there any current shops in Sydney that take zines? I thought maybe there was one on King st, Newtown. Black Rose Anarchist or something else? (obviously not the defunct Pulp books)
I had no idea about Synaesthesia - will have a look.

Also, there are some other very good ways to get your zines distributed in australia. The unconventional approach, such as leaving them places. In libraries. in record shops, bookshops, cafes or venues, near where people drop fliers or elsewhere on trains. inside books. hanging from trees with a string. I mean, you'd have to be willing to part with them for free. But it makes things so much more interesting.

"THE SOMETIMES LAME & UNFORTUNATE TRADITION OF THE HAWTHORN ZINE FAIRSunday 26 October 11am- 4pmEvery year the most excruciatingly-painfully named literary event, 'YeahWrite!' is held, including a zine fair. Last year was woeful. This yearpromises to be better because it will be in conjunction with the Get IntoArt Day(?).Hawthorn Town Hall,358 Burwood RoadHawthorn Mel. Ref. 45 D10More info www.townhallgallery.blogspot.comEmail mardi.nowak@boroondara.vic.gov.au for registration forms to get a zinestall."

Black Rose Anarchist Books takes zines on consignment.
Local independent stuff doesn't need to be explicitly political, but they won't take anything that promotes oppressive or right-wing politics.
They're at 22 Emore Rd, just near Newtown Station - down a hall & through an art gallery. They're open 11-7 thursday & friday, & 11-5 saturday & sunday.
They put a 40% mark up, so think about that when you're pricing. (If I'm working there when you come in, I'll try & talk your price down, cos people don't buy expensive zines, ok.) & they do keep records, but probably won't chase you up about money owed: you'd have to go in & collect it after a few months.

Jura Books is the other anarchist bookshop, it's at 440 Paramatta Rd, Petersham. they do stock zines but I don't know what their policy is.

Sounds like a cool shop, will definitely have to check it out next time I'm down that way.

What is expensive, in Zine world? I'm just asking because I'm not really sure how to price one of my zines, because it's full colour so it costs a lot to print, but I still want to get it out there.

lousie said:

In Sydney:

Black Rose Anarchist Books takes zines on consignment.Local independent stuff doesn't need to be explicitly political, but they won't take anything that promotes oppressive or right-wing politics.They're at 22 Emore Rd, just near Newtown Station - down a hall & through an art gallery. They're open 11-7 thursday & friday, & 11-5 saturday & sunday.They put a 40% mark up, so think about that when you're pricing. (If I'm working there when you come in, I'll try & talk your price down, cos people don't buy expensive zines, ok.) & they do keep records, but probably won't chase you up about money owed: you'd have to go in & collect it after a few months.

Jura Books is the other anarchist bookshop, it's at 440 Paramatta Rd, Petersham. they do stock zines but I don't know what their policy is.

Thanks lousie, I remember hearing about it from a friend. They did some kind of launch there I think. Can I ask, what's the process of sending stuff from interstate? I'm from melbourne. Good to know about the mark-up. I usually charge around cost price anyway.

Emma. I guess it can be a personal opinion, in regards to pricing. I tend to react less than favourably to things beyond $5, depending on content and size of course. I think the rule of thumb for a lot of people, at least for me, is to make zines in a way that keeps them accessible. So I tend to charge about what it costs to print, and try to keep the costs down by making it black and white - I can add colour elements by hand later. it adds a personal touch and costs much less than colour printing. I'd prefer the content to be interesting than for it to have expensive add-ons. I don't find them a make or break it thing.

I rarely charge more than $2.50 for zines. only if it's enormous and thick. I like people being able to pick up my zines for $1.

I have found that the verge sydney uni zine fair has been kind of soul sucking and unproductive for the past 3 years I've been there. I am thinking it might be more fun if you go to uni there and have heaps of friends. This year tables were REALLY expensive, and Vanessa and I sold like, nothing.

I like to keep an eye on the zines list, cus we try to post zine fairs there. There are also sporadic zine fairs at things like the Chippendale Community Arts Center(generally ran by Chris Tamm, in association with the ST2K festival), and at the Penrith Regional Gallery. They have heaps of artist markets, every few months, and it's an awesome place to go, I reckon. But I am biased cus it's my spiritual artistic home!! I'm currently working on organising another fair with a certain southern regional gallery which isn't ready to announce as of yet.

At the moment, I'm totally burnt out on zine fairs. There have been so many this year, and while it's exciting, I'd had a busy year up until recently and was having trouble doing my normal work as well as making heaps of zines. :S